Workers’ victory in the Tar Heel Livestock department: Water at Last!
The 90 workers in the livestock department at Smithfield Packing have shown that the only way to improve their working conditions is to stick together and face the atmosphere of threats, fear and intimidation that their management continues to maintain.
On Wednesday March 21st they delivered a petition that they all signed demanding three basic items: sanitary drinking water, warm water and soap to wash their hands and properly working gates in the pens where the pigs are moved through.
Livestock is the department that moves the hogs from the trucks into the plant for slaughter---32,000 of them on a typical day, 16,000 per shift.
Background
For several years workers in the livestock department have not had regular access to clean drinking water for the simple reason that the company has ignored to fix the water fountains all of which are broken. Workers have had to wait for hours for their supervisors to bring water from another location, sometimes having to plead for it and water so foul that the supervisors themselves do not drink it. Several workers have reported a very strong taste of chlorine in their drinking water. This comes as no surprise since the water container is rinsed out of the livestock hoses, the same used to wash down hogs and workers equipment and the company heavily chlorinates it. The company even passes out Gatorade packets to workers to disguise the bad water taste.
Workers reported that there was no hot running water for hand washing and soap is a rare commodity.
In addition, essential equipment such as restraining gates was not functioning properly. Many of the 200 gates in the department are not fully operational according to several workers’ accounts.
Despite being aware of the deplorable situation in the livestock department for years, the company has done nothing to address the workers’ basic needs.
However, when workers decided that enough was enough and began circulating a petition to collect signatures demanding that Smithfield provides them with water coolers, adequate water, cups, soap as well as repairing the dysfunctional gates and sinks, the company reacted promptly. Before the workers even delivered the petition the management started to fix the problems, including installing a water cooler. The company rushed to the Livestock department with the director of human resources to take an inventory of problems so it looked like the repairs were the company’s initiative rather than the results of the workers organizing and standing up together.
Even though the company started to make the changes a contingent of workers delivered the petition and met with management to demand the improvements and to let the company know that this was a collective demand, not a management initiative. No one was fooled by Smithfield’s pretense of caring.
Thousands of supporters from across the country have made it clear that they are prepared to stand behind Smithfield workers in Tar Heel as they unite to make their workplace safe.
DC City Council introduces resolution condemning Smithfield Foods for creating an environment of intimidation and fear for workers and encourages all supermarkets and vendors in DC from stocking Smithfield meat products. Click for a copy of the resolution in html or as a pdf.
The August '08 issue of Business North Carolina features a cover story on the Justice@Smithfield campaign. Read the article in html or as a pdf.
New York Times columnist Adam Liptak discusses the lawsuit against Justice@Smithfield and the First Amendment. Read the column.
Fayetteville Observer: "Ruling forbids Smithfield Packing using threats"
The March '08 cover story in Labor Notes asks, "Is Fighting for Justice at Smithfield Racketeering?"
Smithifield's Tar Heel workers win a paid Martin Luther King Holiday. Read the press release.
Avram Lyon says when he sees Paula Deen on TV, "all I can think of are the people working under horrible conditions at Smithfield." Read his article in the Forward.
Breast Cancer foundation sues Smithfield Foods for trademark violation.
Read Justice@Smithifield's statement on the U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit court ruling on Smithfield.
The final quarter of Paula Deen's hour-long appearence on NPR's Diane Rehm Show Nov. 28 was dominated by questions over her association with Smithfield Foods. Listen to the show using Windows Media Viewer or Real Player.
On Thursday, November 8, 2007, activists with the Western Massachusetts Jobs With Justice organized a protest outside a brand new Big Y supermarket in Northampton. Read More.
On September 12, the Bergen County (NJ) Central Trades and Labor Council passed a resolution calling on Smithfield to "[o]bey the law, by providing a safe workplace, giving Smithfield workers the right to chose a union...free from interferene of any kind."
On August 6, Smithfield Tar Heel plant worker Jose Ozorio Figueroa was terminated. Company representatives claim it was for showing up four minutes late to his shift, but Ozorio believes that he was fired for his union activities. Read his statement.
Presidential Master Chef Talli V. Counsel asks celebrity chef Paula Deen to use her influence to end the “brutal working conditions” at Smithfield’s Tar Heel Plant. Read more.
On August 1, 2007, the City of Boston passed a resolution calling on the city to "review its purchasing of any products from the Smithfield Packing Company in Tar Heel, North Carolina....and suspend these purchases until the company ends all form of abuse, inimidation and violence against its workers..." It also encourages Boston supermarkets "to consider suspending their purchase of any Smithfield products..."
On Saturday, July 14, dozens of Nashville clergy, civil rights leaders and consumers rallied to demand that two area supermarkets to stop stocking Smithfield Foods pork products made at the company’s Tar Heel plant. Read more.
More than 100 supporters rallied in front of a Publix supermarket in Atlanta to demand that the market stop carrying pork products from Smithfield's Tar Heel plant. Read More.
More than 250 family members and supporters of Smithfield Workers delivered a Father’s Day Card to Harris Teeter’s president. Read the news coverage [With Video].
On June 4, the City of Cambridge, MA unanimously passed a resolution in support Smithfield workers in Tar Heel. Read the historic resolution.
Children of Smithfield workers will deliver a Father's Day card to Harris Teeter's PresidentDownload the flyer.
Jim Hightower: Paula Deen "has cooked up a big ol' mess of political controversy for herself." Read the story.
